Look at the parts of Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and the accusations they make against each other
1) Read the two accusations again, make a note of the words that have a particular impact or force. Reflect on why this might be and what the differences between these two characters might be.
Henry enforces his accusations by personifying the ‘treasons’ Mowbray supposedly committed, describing them as ‘fetching from false Mowbray their first head and spring’. There is a sort of cataphora present here with Henry building up the distasteful nature of the treasons first in long sentences ‘all the treasons for these eighteen years’ and then suddenly, dramatically revealing the perpetrator: ‘fetch from false Mowbray’. The use of the alliteration ‘complotted’ and contrived’ draws the audience’s attention to the implied deviousness of the treasons – indeed the use of voiceless velar stops here, with the strong ‘k’ sound, reflects Henry’s forceful bitter tone as if he is spitting these accusations out with a particular venom. This shows the audience the burning depth of his anger towards Mowbray. He employs a lexical field of death and violence to convey the gruesome nature of the murder: ‘death’ stream of blood’ ‘blood cries’ to shock the audience and show Mowbray in a negative, barbaric light. He further pinpoints the cruelness of Mowbray’s action through the reference to the biblical murder of Abel and the declaration that the duke was an ‘innocent soul’. Abel was murdered by his brother Cain in an act of heartless savagery – thus by using this comparison, Hemry is enforcing the high level of betrayal in the duke’s murder: he was slain by someone he trusted and even perhaps shared blood with just like Abel. It could be argued that this is a subtle jab at King Richard II, who the Elizabethan audience at the time would have known had himself ordered Mowbray to assassinate the Duke of Gloucester. Perhaps Henry knows it was the king and is letting him know that through this subtle hint? The audience is left feeling tense, wondering what the King must feel at this underlying accusation, or is encouraged to see Mowbray in a worse light, as he is an implied part of this treacherous brethren. Henry then paints himself in a romantic heroic light, claiming the duke’s blood and even the ‘tongueless caverns of the earth’ pushed him to seek justice and punish Mowbray for his sin. The personified metaphor of the ‘tongueless caverns of the earth’ is one of a romantic nature: he is playing on the idea of Nature calling him to confront Mowbray, as if it is something so essential that the earth and the force of life itself demands it. He also victimizes Nature and the duke – Nature is ‘tongueless’, voiceless and the duke is dead with only his spilt blood to speak for him. This makes his decision to serve ‘justice and rough chastisement’ sound even more noble and glorious – he is standing up for the weak by doing so, not for his own personal benefit, executing the will of God’s Nature. He also uses repetition – insisting several times that this information rests on the value of his life: ‘my life shall prove it true’ ‘This arm shall do it, or this this life be spent’. This enforces the noble, glorious image he is setting up for himself. He is a valiant warrior, willing to give up his life in the name of truth.
Mowbray plays on Henry’s use of cataphora in his own answer, slowly building up to the declaration that Henry ‘liest’. The extensive use of commas ‘Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart’ elongate his sentences and give the illusion of a smooth, almost serpentine manner of speech as if he has planned this response and is delivering it with sly, cunning confidence. The similes he uses are very accusing and degrading with Mowbray calling Bolingbroke’s heart ‘low’ and his speech ‘false’. Then he suddenly narrows down to the short, dramatic and accusing clause: ‘thou liest.’ The abrupt, commanding full stop contrasts with the smoother, flowing commas – suggesting a change of tone from subtle cunning to outright biting. However, Mowbray contrasts in technique with Henry when instead of relying on self-romanticisation, he tries to gain the sympathy of the listeners through self-deprecation, sorrowfully admitting ‘to [own] disgrace’ that he ‘neglected [his] sworn duty’ and that ‘this is [his] fault’. But after this moment of humble confession, he picks up the pace again, declaring that he ‘will boldly defend’ himself against Mowbray’s other accusations. His aggressive repetition of ‘traitor’ and use of a semantic field of insults ‘overweening’ ‘recreant’ ‘most degenerate’ mirror his angry, condemning tone. His use of the forceful verb ‘hurl’ also echoes his anger – even his physical mannerisms are affected by his strong dislike of Bolingbroke. He claims his superiority higher than ‘the best blood chamber’d in [Bolingbroke’s] bosom’ with the superlative ‘best’ implying that Mowbray thinks he is more noble than Bolingbroke’s royal bloodline. This is a very bold claim to make as the royal bloodline was deemed to be one of high loyalty and nobility and reinforces his claim to innocence even further. Then, finally, he employs sophisticated, royal jargon: ‘most heartily I pray’ ‘your highness’, finishing on a dignified tone to impress the listeners and to flatter the King by addressing him in a respectful and gracious manner. This could strike the audience as rather obsequious – it could be that he is trying to win over the King through fancy terms.
Further notes on this scene:
In this extract, both Mowbray and Bolingbroke use imagery of heaven and earth to reinforce their separate arguments. Bolingbroke uses the repetition of the noun ‘heaven’ several times as he attempts to romanticise his speech and make it sound more attractive to Richard in order to gain his trust. This is a sort of appeal to authority – a reference to Christian heavens and God. This is significant because during the Elizabethan era, Christianity was seen as the most important thing in society and was the basis of ruling and laws. God was seen as the ultimate divine ruler so by declaring ‘heaven be the record to my speech’, Bolingbroke is implying his speech is righteous and protected by spiritual divinity and his use of the imperative verb ‘be’ reflects his confident tone – he is openly declaring that God can judge him if his speech is false. Furthermore, he extends that Christian imagery by stating ‘my body shall make good upon this earth or my divine soul answer it in heaven’. He may be quoting Holy Scripture here and yet again rests the credibility of his speech on God’s judgment, a very bold thing to do as God was deemed the ultimate righteous judge at the time. This statement also implies that, by accusing Mowbray, he is doing ‘good upon this earth’, painting himself as a romantic heroic light. He also claims the duke’s blood and even the ‘tongueless caverns of the earth’ pushed him to seek justice and punish Mowbray for his sin. The personified metaphor of the ‘tongueless caverns of the earth’ is one of a romantic nature: he is playing on the idea of Nature calling him to confront Mowbray, as if it is something so essential that the earth and the force of life itself demands it. He also victimizes Nature and the duke – Nature is ‘tongueless’, voiceless and the duke is dead with only his spilt blood to speak for him. This makes his decision to serve ‘justice and rough chastisement’ sound even more noble and glorious – he is standing up for the weak by doing so, not for his own personal benefit, executing the will of God’s Nature. This enforces the noble, Christian image he is setting up for himself. He is a valiant faithful servant of God, doing good works and willing to give up his life in the name of truth. Mowbray also relies on this natural earth and heaven imagery in an attempt to flatter the king Richard. He wishes Richard so much happiness that ‘the heavens envy earth’s good hap’. His personification of the heavens being envious of the earth reinforces the idea that Richard will experience so much happiness that earth will be a merrier place than the heavens. This is a very strong declaration to make and just like Bolingbroke’s speech, it references God through the mention of ‘heavens’, implying Richard is so great he has the potential to surpass even God’s own perfect paradise.
Furthermore, both men use natural imagery of air and landscape to further illustrate the points each one makes. Mowbray demonstrates his burning desire to punish Bolingbroke for his supposed treasons by swearing he would even go to ‘the frozen ridges of the Alps or another other ground inhabitable’ to do so. Again, we see this use of natural imagery used to portray himself as a heroic, daring man, willing to suffer a ‘frozen’ odyssey and face unknown, potentially hostile landscapes to service justice. Bolingbroke uses ‘air’ imagery as he compares Mowbray’s respectable family to a ‘sky’ and their descendants, in which Mowbray is included, to ‘clouds’, stating that ‘the more fair and crystal the sky the uglier seem the clouds that in it fly’. He is basically saying Mowbray’s family’s reputation seems too good to be true and that the treacherous Mowbray proves that the offspring of this family are ‘ugly’ unpleasant people hiding behind the ‘fair and crystal’ façade of their family. Clouds can be seen as ominous objects, foreshadowers of storms and rain. Perhaps, Bolingbroke uses this specific imagery to suggest that like clouds, Mowbray is capable of bringing ‘storms’ to England through his treason.
Likewise, Richard II uses natural imagery himself, but of water and fire. He uses the similes ‘deaf as the sea’ and ‘hasty as fire’, comparing Bolingbroke and Mowbray’s ‘rage’ and ‘ire’ to these two elements. The personification and juxtaposition of the sea and fire is powerful as these are both very strong, contrasting natural elements, which cannot mix. There is this idea of incongruity between the two (as water puts fire out)– one that is reflected in Bolingbroke and Mowbray’s tumultuous relationship. The sea is ‘deaf’, just like how Bolingbroke and Mowbray appear when they refuse to listen to reason and the fire is ‘hasty’, just like they are with their impetuous angry words. We can therefore see that Richard II is aware of the impossibility of them reconciling and the futileness of their arguing – they remain unable to listen or resolve anything, only capable of attacking each other verbally.
Moreover, there is the imagery of blood used several times throughout this scene. Mowbray uses the juxtaposition ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ to compare his blood with Bolingbroke’s and to criticize the latter’s intense anger. He claims to be using ‘cold words’, meaning his temper is cool and his manner controlled, while he contrasts Bolingsbroke’s ‘hot’ blood, arguing that it should ‘be cooled’ like his own. He is attempting to show himself as superior and more sophisticated than Bolingbroke, boasting that he knows ‘hot blood’ will not solve this argument. So here blood is used as a symbol for Bolingbroke’s anger. The connotations of the noun blood are pain and violence and therefore by comparing Bolingbroke’s temper to blood, Mowbray is implying it is one of violence, which may lead to actual bloodshed and other harmful things. Richard II uses medical jargon when he too refers to blood: ‘purge’ ‘choler’ ‘letting blood’ ‘doctors’. He uses the metaphor ‘choler’ to compare Bolingbroke and Mowbray’s arguing to a sort of bile found in the human body, frequently associated with irascible temperaments and therefore portrays their anger as something foul and toxic like bile. He begs them to ‘purge’ this anger ‘without letting blood’ – with the same idea of bloodshed being symbolic of war and further potential damage which could be caused by their arguing- and uses an appeal to authority to reinforce this, by referring to ‘doctors’: ‘our doctors say this is no month to bleed’. He also uses the first person plural ‘our’ to attempt to reach out to and bring the two men into unity. Blood is also referred to as the ancestry of the characters with Mowbray pointing out Bolingbroke set aside his ‘high blood’s royalty’ to start committing treason and claiming his superiority higher than ‘the best blood chamber’d in [Bolingbroke’s] bosom’. These are all references to Bolingbroke’s familial relations to the King and the royal family and there is this continuous idea of one’s blood being ‘sacred’ - as it determines one’s social status and background. The royal bloodline was deemed to be one of high loyalty and nobility, protected by divinity, and when Bolingbroke speaks of how Mowbray set aside his ‘high blood’s royalty’, he is saying the latter has betrayed his own bloodline, something that was viewed as very disgraceful and treacherous at the time. He does this again when pinpointing the cruelty of Mowbray’s murder of the duke. Indeed, he compares the assassination to the biblical murder of Abel by his brother Cain. Through this comparison, Henry is enforcing the high level of betrayal in the duke’s murder: he was slain by someone he trusted and even perhaps shared blood with just like Abel was. He also employs a lexical field of death and violence to convey the gruesome nature of the duke’s murder - ‘death’ stream of blood’ ‘blood cries’ – and uses the verb ‘sluiced’ and noun ‘streams’ reflects the ease with which Mowbray supposedly killed the ‘innocent soul’, showing the latter in a negative, barbaric light capable of killing with ease.